


Butterfly

by shadowolfhunter



Category: White Collar
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-24
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-26 21:02:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2666243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowolfhunter/pseuds/shadowolfhunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal didn't get the chance to run, and Kramer took him away from Peter. Three months into a life sentence, Neal despairs of ever being free again, and doubts Peter's ability to help him. Peter is fighting to get Neal back with every weapon he has, but Neal is done waiting... What happens next changes everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Morning Glory

He rubbed his hands over his face, and stroked them back through his thick, dark wavy hair. He really couldn’t do this any more. It wasn’t just the anklet, it was the coldness, the distance, the utter mistrust. Peter hadn’t trusted him, but he had never been so cold, so distant. Neal knew he didn’t deserve trust, but Peter and the team had treated him as a human being, with kindness.

Kramer saw him as a tool. Like Rice had. Unlike Rice, he saw Neal as his own personal golden goose, and Neal was going to keep pulling in the arrests, keeping Kramer at the top of the tree. Kramer saw no need of human contact or kindness.

And it was never going to end. There would be no freedom, just a dreary vista of unending servitude.

Neal knew what he was going to do now, knew that it was the biggest gamble of his life. This time he would be literally staking his life upon the move. He had reached the point of not caring. Just wanting this to be over.

The beauty of the plan, was that it could happen any day, all it required was a certain set of circumstances, and with Kramer, who wasn’t anywhere near as good as Peter, those circumstances could crop up any time.

For the first time in several weeks, Neal smiled.


	2. Pinned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter's working hard to get Neal back.

Peter Burke knew he was getting close, there had been a couple of closed door meetings with Hughes, and the presence of one of the senior directors, grapevine had it that the powers on high were concerned with the treatment that Neal had been receiving at the hands of Kramer.

All Peter really had to do was hang tight. But that was easier said than done.

Peter wasn’t sleeping well. A third hand report from someone close to Kramer’s office said that Neal was tired, thinner than when he was snatched away by the Marshals and Kramer, and that he looked at the end of his rope.

Then Sara Ellis reappeared in the office. After the usual round of pleasantries, Sara had pushed the door shut and fixed Peter and Diana with a glare.

“I saw Neal.”

“To talk to?” Peter leaned forward, perhaps this would be the news about Neal that he had been waiting for.

Sara crossed her arms and shook her head. “No.” There was a pinched look of distress on her face, “He looks like hell, Peter.”

Peter blanched, he had been afraid of this.

“He looked straight at me,” Sara’s eyes glistened, “he’s hurting, he seems to have lost all hope.” She swallowed and straightened up, “Neal’s a goddamn pain in the ass, but he’s never deserved this. And what are you doing about it, Peter Burke?”

“What I can…”

“What you can isn’t good enough.” Sara glared at him.

“HEY.” Diana snapped. “That’s not fair.”

Peter appreciated her back up, even as the guilt ate at him. He had brought Kramer in, once Kramer had seen what Neal could do, he had coveted the young con-man to enhance his own reputation. Fair, ethical, decent, none of that mattered to Kramer. Advancing his career did.

Peter needed to have another conversation with Hughes.

It was that thing called timing again, think of the man, and he appears. Peter almost grinned at the thought, until he saw the look on the older man’s face.

“Caffrey’s been shot.” Hughes said. There was something harsh and dry about the way the man said it that flicked hard against Peter’s psyche. He waited with dread for the punchline.

“Kramer shot him. In the back.”   
Peter slid back into his seat. Hughes glared for a moment, but somewhere in the detached area of his brain, Peter registered that the fury was aimed at someone else.

“He needs you to go to him.” Hughes’ voice was now barely above a whisper.

There were other people in his office, Peter knew that, but he couldn’t recall who as he pulled himself to his feet and headed for the door.

Neal was shot. Neal needed him.

That was all the information that Peter needed.


	3. Cold Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter learns what happened to Neal.

Peter Burke sank into a chair in the corridor of the hospital. He needed a moment before going back to Neal.

The young conman was in a bad way. Kramer was unrepentant, and for a while it had looked like Neal was going to be blamed for being shot in the back. Then one of Kramer’s men, appalled by everything that had been going on, stepped forward and things got really ugly for Kramer.

Small comfort for Neal. Peter rubbed his hands over his face and through his hair. Guilt swept through him like a tidal wave. He was the one who had brought Kramer in, he’d exposed his young CI to Kramer’s resentment and greed, and this had ended very badly for Neal.

Kramer’s bullet had entered Neal’s back, clipped a rib which had collapsed, puncturing Neal’s left lung, which had collapsed, before being deflected to lodge hard against Neal’s spine.

Peter had listened to the doctor and then asked for the short version.

The short version, the swelling was pressing on Neal’s spine, until the swelling went down, they couldn’t go in for the bullet, when they could there was no actual certainty that if they got the bullet, Neal would ever recover the use of his legs.

The good news, they had reinflated Neal’s lung, and that was going to be fine.

Peter tried to gather himself together. Neal needed him to be strong, because Neal was breaking apart. The young man was frightened, in pain and Peter watched those huge blue eyes in that handsome but too thin face well with tears and had to leave the room.

Neal seeing Peter break apart was not going to help the situation.

Watching his playful, fun-loving, reckless CI in the tenth level of hell was going to kill him, but it had to be done.

Wearily he pushed himself to his feet, put on his game face and went to comfort his distressed young conman. Hughes could handle the departmental in-fighting. Peter was here for Neal.


End file.
